The Audacity

Every two weeks or so I am publishing an essay from an emerging writer. This week, we are publishing “Bone Mother” by Danna D. Schmidt. Danna is a ceremonialist and Medical Aid in Dying mixologist living in Seattle. Her writing has appeared in The Sun magazine, Okay Donkey, and Bending Genres. She’s working on a speculative memoir about family secrets, the prices we pay to keep them, and the power of wishcrafting to shapeshift our lives. “We are all children of blood and bone.

There are several absent fathers in this novel, with Mac’s death looming largest of all. In what ways does the absence of good dads affect Moon, Stevie, Adam, and their relationships to each other? Conversely, the mothers they’re all left with aren’t very nurturing and make extremely disappointing decisions. Then again, mothers are often put on a pedestal, even though they make mistakes and have their own trauma they’re dealing with.

Although set in wildly different places, do you see any similarities between Stevie and Moon’s relationship and Cal and John’s from John of John? In what ways do you think the tension between filial piety and desire for independence stunts Stevie and Cal’s growth? How does codependence between parent and child make it harder for both parties to mature? It can be challenging to have a fraught but deeply intimate relationship with a parent. Have you witnessed or experienced this dynamic before?

AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS Our July bookclub selection is Pool Houseby Mary H.K. Choi. We will be in conversation with Mary on July 30th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open. For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. And this is what we will be reading for the rest of the year. We’re partnering with the lovely people at Allstora for the Audacious Book Club.

Pool House is such a fascinating read about the lengths some people will go to to maintain an image. By its very nature, living in the pool house affects Moon and Stevie’s perceptions of themselves. When Adam joins them and they pretend to still be in the big house, what purpose is the lie serving? How does this play into the fake family/real family dynamic? What do you think about these characters and the way they are intertwined?

Every two weeks or so I am publishing an essay from an emerging writer. This week, we are publishing “Cutting, Both Ways” by Lacey Jones. Lacey thinks and writes about despair, repair, and secular aesthetics. She has a PhD in English and Religious Studies and works as an associate editor at The Yale Review. Currently she is at work on an essay collection and applying to medical school. You can find her fiction in The Kenyon Review and her poetry at Image.

AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS Our July bookclub selection is Pool Houseby Mary H.K. Choi. We will be in conversation with Mary on July 30th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open. If you missed our conversation with Douglas Stuart, it is up now. For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. And this is what we will be reading for the rest of the year. We’re partnering with the lovely people at Allstora for the Audacious Book Club.

Mary H.K. Choi’s debut novel, 2018’s Emergency Contact, opens with the particular and unrelenting embarrassment of a teen girl whose mother happens to be a MILF. Choi’s protagonist, Penny Lee, is just four days from heading off to college and is at the Apple store with her mom, picking up a promised new phone, when disaster strikes. Penny’s mom, Celeste, gets chatted up by the father of one of Penny’s high school nemeses, the very rich and very mean Madison Chandler.

There’s a lot of discourse around male loneliness, and much of that discourse is asinine because, let’s be real, in this day and age, a lot of people, across the gender spectrum are lonely. It is not a uniquely masculine condition. But still, John of John is suffused with loneliness. What keeps John and Cal lonely? In what ways do they self-sabotage opportunities to escape that loneliness? After the fight, John and Cal have to rebuild their already strained relationship.

Every two weeks or so I am publishing an essay from an emerging writer. This week, we are publishing “One Creature Devouring Another” by Alicia Lim. Alicia is an artist, writer, and labor organizer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her writing has appeared in KHÔRA. She is currently obsessed with horseshoe crabs and bog bodies, and has recently become completely enamored with ceramics. You can find her artwork at alicialim.com. Boar With Wolf by Alicia Lim I. Night falls, spreads.